The Not So Invisible Woman

by Suzanne Portnoy

  'Yeah,' I said. 'She's a good journalist.'

  I went home that night alone. I turned on the computer and checked my email. There was one from Pat in my inbox. I hadn't heard from her for a couple of days, since I'd sent her an email asking about her new boyfriend.

  'You are right to be paranoid, Suzanne,' she wrote. 'I am upset with you. It struck me that I did not want to introduce you to Mike because I know that he's your "type". Don't think that you could resist flirting with him. I feel very annoyed that I do not trust you. I never will. I have come to the sad conclusion, after agonising about it, that despite your many, many fantastic qualities and all the fun we have had together, that this lack of trust has eroded my capacity to be your friend. It's bullshit to have a pal that I do not trust.'

  Everybody thinks they've got me figured out, I thought. I'd never stolen anyone's boyfriend and never would. That had happened to me back in college, and it hurt for years, so I knew what it was like. But Pat was either jealous of my ease with men or paranoid. There was nothing I could do about either. What a drag to see that women who profess to be sexually liberated are threatened by women who really were.

  As for Jim, I didn't know what to make of him. Either he was a groupie, a star fucker or he was simply doing his homework. You never know who you're going to meet on the web, but you do think you know your friends.

  I shut off my computer and went upstairs to bed.

  18. THE GANG BANG

  A couple of days after our third date, Jim called to apologise for snooping on me. Then he asked me out on another date. 'I've decided. I'm not going to read your blog any more,' he said. 'What you do when I'm not around is your business.'

  'OK,' I said. 'That's fine. Whatever.'

  We continued to meet up every couple of weeks. Jim became what I think of as the 'boyfriend type'. That is, we met up regularly and did boyfriend–girlfriend things – movies, museums, strolls around Hampstead Heath, then always back to mine for sex.

  But I wasn't his girlfriend and he wasn't my boyfriend, and that worked well for both of us.

  Jim said he just wanted a rest from relationships. Then he said something that implied the opposite. 'I want to be monogamous with you, Suzanne. Do what you like. I just don't want to know.'

  'You realise there's not a category for the kind of relationship you're talking about, Jim? You can't expect monogamy from someone you're not having a relationship with, especially when you don't want a relationship.'

  'I'm not expecting you to be monogamous, Suzanne. I just don't want you to tell me what you get up to.'

  That made a change. Most of the men I met wanted to know everything – everything about sex, that is. They got turned on hearing about my sexual escapades.

  I wasn't sure I was completely comfortable with Jim's see-no-evil plan. I don't censor my conversations, as my ill-fated friendship with Pat revealed. Still, I liked Jim, and I liked having a male friend with whom I could have a moan. Since I'd stopped speaking with Pat after receiving her sayonara email, it was nice to have someone I could chat with about everyday things. It was also nice that he had a gorgeous cock and was fun in bed. He was a fuck buddy with benefits, only he didn't like to think of himself in those terms.

  At some point, I knew, he'd find a nice, straight girl with whom he could settle down, but until that happened, I was happy to be his pit stop on the road to love.

  Yet at the back of my mind was the sense that I had settled down myself. As I pondered my sex life, I came to the conclusion it had become pretty tame. My twice-monthly breakfast bonks with Sam kept the kink up. But Jim was a Flirtnik guy, and sex with him, though intimate and horny, wasn't of the tie-me-up, fuck-me-over-the-kitchen-table variety that I sometimes craved. And he was the only man I ever met who lost his hard-on when I pulled out my anal beads, and that was telling.

  'What are those?' he asked, as I reached into my toy drawer.

  'Anal beads.'

  'What are you going to do with those?'

  'Put them up my ass. What do you think?'

  'Do you have to?'

  'No, I don't have to,' I said. I saw that his cock was shrivelling fast, so I put the beads back in the drawer.

  'What's in there?' Jim asked, looking at the stash and sounding concerned.

  'My toys.'

  'I've never seen a sex toy before,' he admitted.

  I thought that was funny. Sam loved using me as a voodoo doll, seeing how many toys he could stick in me at once. 'Leave your toys out for me,' he often texted the night before a morning visit.

  Jim wasn't into any of it. 'Do you think we can save stuff like that for another time?'

  'Sure, Jim,' I said, and pulled him on top of me.

  For the most part, my sex life could be summed up in three words: one on one. A breakfast boy might come over in the morning, somebody else might drop in for a long lunch and Jim might swing by at night on a kids-free weekend. Still, it was mostly one on one, and I wanted more.

  I thought arranging a gang bang would break up the monotony. I also thought it would be easy to sort out. I figured all I'd have to do was put the word out to five or six of the men in my mobile, and that they'd turn up at my house on-time, cocks hard.

  I'd had a gang-bang fantasy for years, but never put one together. I'd done threesomes, sucked off rows of guys in grope rooms and been in places where twenty couples were all fucking each other at once. But I'd never had a proper gang bang – that is, never been in a situation where I was the centre of attention, with half-a-dozen guys taking turns sexing me.

  I really wanted a good old-fashioned kinky pounding. I wanted to turn off my brain and go to the secret place in my head set aside for pleasure, and I wanted it on my terms, which meant I wanted the men to be hot and hung.

  So I sent a text to my favourite funboys, past and present: Greg, Rump Shaker, Dr Donny, Sam, Pauli, Omar and Marcus.

  'I want to have a gang bang this Friday night,' I wrote. 'Let me know if you're going to be around and if you're up for it.'

  Settled. I figured even if two or three couldn't make it, that left me with enough for a proper bang.

  Since Greg and I had hooked up three years earlier at Rio's, he had become a regular swinging partner, and I knew he liked a gang bang. I'd also heard through another swinging partner of his, Dawn, that he often organised parties for her, filled with half-a-dozen good-looking guys with the requisite big dicks. I figured he'd pull through for me.

  Rump Shaker, another regular, ran with a pack of guys including Pauli. A year earlier, following a night of dancing at Torture Garden, I'd had a threesome with the two of them that started in my hot tub at three in the morning and finished four hours later on the sofa. I was so exhausted afterwards, I had to climb into bed alone. It was unforgettable, and not just because the sweat stains were still visible on my sofa.

  Dr Donny, the horny hedge fund trader who came to my house once to play doctor, had never contacted me again. I knew he was a long shot, but though it was worth the punt. His world-class cock would be a welcome addition to the party.

  Omar was a lover from a couple of years earlier and he had a massive cock. We had drifted apart. The last I'd heard from him, about six months earlier, he had a new girlfriend. But I hoped he might be tempted out of hibernation.

  Finally, there was Marcus, another friend of Rump Shaker's. I'd never met him, but Carl, the Rump Shaker, had told me we might get along, if only because the two of them had the same-sized cock. He worked as a DJ and was a comedian on the side, and for fun occasionally arranged swinging parties. Our introduction was overdue, and my orgy seemed a good opportunity to bring it about.

  Six hours after my texts went out, the responses began to come in.

  'Hi, thanks for the invitation,' texted Sam. 'Sadly, I don't like to share. Call me selfish and greedy but waiting in a queue is not my idea of fun. X'

  Then Marcus rang to say that he loved the idea but thought it best we met first for lunch. So traditional, I thou
ght.

  Omar wrote soon after to say he was getting married in three weeks time and that he didn't think going to a gang bang was such a good idea. I deleted him from my phone.

  When the rest didn't respond as the day wore on, I began to doubt they would on time. I wondered what I had done wrong. Had I been too blunt? Should I have asked Greg to organise the gang bang for me? Were men supposed to take the lead? I knew Rump Shaker, for one, had recently started seeing a woman on the swinging scene, and wondered if he didn't feel right gang-banging without her. Still, that didn't explain the other guys' silence.

  I had thought it would be so easy, and now I realised it wasn't going to be. As I chopped vegetables for dinner, I debated texting some of my B-list guys. Then the phone rang. It was Stephen, an artist I had met off Craigslist a few weeks earlier. He was cute, funny and sexy. We'd fucked one Saturday afternoon after lunch at the Electric and a stroll around Portobello market. We hadn't met up since then, and I had assumed he wasn't interested in me.

  'How you doing?' he asked.

  'Fine. Busy. Hanging out with Madonna and Gwyneth and Kate,' I joked. 'The usual.'

  He laughed. 'Yes, you and your celeby world. It must be very stressful.'

  I contemplated inviting him to my stress-reducing gang bang, but wasn't sure he was the kind of guy who'd go for that.

  Stephen said his latest project was a painting, as a test, he wanted to do for a friend of mine who ran a gallery that specialised in animation art. He thought he might do one of Wolverine, the X-Men comic book superhero.

  'My son used to collect Wolverine comics. We have a file cabinet full.'

  'That's just what I need,' he said. 'Reference material.'

  I offered to mail a few comics to him.

  'Why do you have to send them?' said Stephen. 'Why don't you just meet me and give them to me in person?'

  'OK. I'm free Saturday afternoon. Friday night might be free now, too. It all depends.'

  'All depends on what?'

  'I'm trying— Hold on.' I walked to the far side of the kitchen. 'I'm trying to organise a gang bang. Only I can't find anyone to come.'

  'Why are you whispering?' he said.

  'I don't want my kids to hear.'

  'A gang bang?' Now he was the one whispering.

  'Yes,' I repeated. 'A gang bang. I've never had one before. I thought it might be fun to try it out, see if I like it. It would be something different.'

  'I'm afraid I can't help you there,' he said, laughing.

  That was a pity. The one time Stephen and I got together, it had been unexpectedly exciting. He had a hard, athletic body and looked ten years younger than his 45 years. He was Jewish, about five foot nine, with short dark hair that was thinning on top. He wore trendy little black-framed specs that made him look like an architect or a West End advertising exec. He had on black chinos and a black T-shirt with an unbuttoned black shirt over that. I liked his fine features and intense gaze. I liked that he smiled easily. And I liked that he was Jewish. I hadn't been with a Jewish guy since I was married, and there was something comfortably familiar about Jewish guys. We shared a wry way of looking at the world.

  While walking down the Portobello Road after lunch, we had stopped in some shops along the way. I bought a badge that said 'I ♥ Shoes' and another that said '100% Slut'.

  'You should get one that says, "I'm a shopaholic",' Stephen said.

  'I don't think so,' I said, laughing. 'I'm more of a slut.'

  We drove to my house later that afternoon, got a little stoned and then fucked for two hours. I hadn't smoked a joint in four or five months, and the combination of powerful weed, Stephen's dirty grin and his perpetually hard cock really worked for me. I'd almost forgotten how great stoned sex can be.

  I'd wanted him to stay the night so I could carry on fucking him. Unfortunately, I had a date in the Docklands that evening, so I kissed him goodbye in my kitchen whilst he stood there, naked, drinking a cup of tea, still hard.

  He grabbed me and pulled me over and rubbed his cock between my legs. I felt myself get wet again.

  As Stephen kissed me goodbye, a rush of blood went to my head. I didn't know if it was because I was stoned or because he was an especially good kisser, but I liked it. I stayed in his arms and we kissed some more.

  'I'm going to make you sooooo late,' Stephen said as his cock rested at the entrance to my pussy.

  'You're very naughty,' I said. 'I have fifteen minutes to make a forty-minute drive.'

  Even though we had just met that afternoon, I felt I could trust him to leave the house after me. I also felt the urge to see him again. So we spoke on the phone a few times after that and tried to arrange a mutually convenient time to meet again, but we never worked it out. After a while I assumed his desire had fizzled. But now, hearing his voice again, I realised I'd rather spend the evening in bed with Stephen than getting fucked by five guys with bigger cocks.

  'I could forget all about that gang bang,' I offered.

  'You could.'

  'I wouldn't mind the overnight.'

  'Well, I'll have to check if Friday is OK,' Stephen said. He paused for two seconds. 'As it so happens, I'm free.'

  'So, I'll see you Friday night. You can go through the comic books, then you can come to bed,' I said. 'The gang bang is officially off.'

  I texted the other guys to call off the gang bang.

  Stephen came round Friday after work for another night of grass, kisses and orgasms. I forgot all about the gang bang.

  For almost twenty-four hours. Then on Saturday afternoon Greg rang.

  'You around this evening?'

  'Yes, I'm around. What do you have in mind?'

  'I was thinking about Dunstable,' he said. He was referring to Arousal, a popular swingers' club in Bedfordshire, 45 minutes up the Ml from London. 'Wanna go?'

  'Sure,' I said. 'Why not?'

  'Pick you up at ten.'

  I'd never been to Arousal but had heard plenty, first from Relish Man in the steam room at Rio's and later from Rump Shaker Carl, who had invited me to join him on several occasions. Carl made the club sound like the sexiest play palace in the UK, but I wasn't convinced. Any handsome guy with a ten-inch cock is going to have fun wherever he goes.

  Thinking Carl might want to join us, I called him up and invited him and his partner to make it a foursome.

  'Lovely, Suzanne. We were planning on going anyway,' he said. 'We'll phone you when we're on our way.'

  Greg arrived at my house dressed in his standard party outfit – black T-shirt, black jeans, black leather jacket, black leather cap.

  I'd set my hair in a 50s bob, my now-favourite style, and put on a vintage 50s dress that enhanced the retro look. It was a blue silk sleeveless number with an empire waist that flared out, very different from the standard black-lace nighties I knew would adorn most of the women there. Underneath, I wore a new Agent Provocateur pale-peach set, bought for me by a 27-year-old Craigslist admirer who got off on buying me lingerie after watching me try it on in the dressing room.

  The bra, panties and suspender belt were almost transparent, but frilly enough to cause a stir. As soon as I'd stepped into them that night, I felt my sex drive boost a notch. Expensive lingerie turns me on. I hoped it would affect the men at Arousal in the same way. I slipped on my usual fishnet stockings and black patent fuck-me shoes to complete my look.

  'Wow,' said Greg when I opened the door.

  I laughed. 'Thought I'd make an effort. I want a gang bang tonight.'

  In the past I had declined Rump Shaker's invitations to Arousal because I hadn't seen the point of making such a long journey for sex when plenty was available right in London. But I was horny and determined to have more than one cock that night and I knew I could count on Greg to round up a few guys.

  Greg drove and, like a homing pigeon, reached his destination, pulling into a row of garages just behind a suburban residential street. Had I not been chauffered, I never would have found it. Greg drov
e the car down a narrow gravel road and pulled into the last available spot, at the end of a row of some twenty other vehicles.

  'Looks like a busy night,' I said, cheered.

  We walked into the club and up the stairs to reception. It was dark and basic, no decor. Somehow, instantly deflating. The woman sitting behind the window put us through the usual newbie routine: fill out a form, present picture IDs, pay the entrance fee. Then she told us to follow her, for the guided tour.

  'I'm Joan,' she said. 'Let me show you around.'

  She was blonde, middle-aged, overweight and well endowed. Her skimpy black Ann Summers lace lingerie barely contained her big tits. She had all the cheeriness of an old-fashioned tea lady.

  Guided tours of swingers' clubs is de rigueur for first-timers. The ritual helps a hostess make her guests feel comfortable and helps guests earmark the best spots for playing. The top swinging clubs are usually run by people who are in the lifestyle themselves, and their pleasure in their work usually shows. Joan was as cheery and knowledgeable as any other long-time player.

  'Now this,' she said, pointing to the main room, 'is the chill-out zone. There's a bar over there –' she gestured to the right – 'for you to put your wine and spirits. You can buy mixers and crisps, too.'

  Greg walked over to the bar with the blue carrier bag he'd brought. He handed the bartender two bottles of Grolsch. I always went to clubs carrying a flask filled with freezing-cold vodka, but kept it with me, in my handbag.

  Joan took us down a hallway that led to a tiny black room, perhaps three-feet by three, with a small black cushion on the floor and Styrofoam blocks each cut into the shape of a rock or a crater, painted grey, and glued to the ceiling.

  'This is the cave,' she said. I stared at the lone cushion on the floor and made a mental note to avoid that space. It looked like a leftover from a primary-school production of a caveman skit, comical, not sexy.

  Continuing the tour, Joan led us through a labyrinth of rooms. There was a cinema playing triple-X videos, with a balcony above for voyeurs, plus a dark room, a grope room, a couples' playroom. There were separate bedrooms with lockable doors, a dance floor with a pole set-up on a stage to serve a girl's go-go fantasy, and a mock castle to – I didn't know what. It was a regression to the playschool theme.